The Alberta government is hoping the tide will finally turn in 2018 when it comes to getting a pipeline to tidewater built.

The NDP government saw a clear path forward for the expansion of Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline to the British Columbia coast when the Trudeau cabinet approved the project in late 2016.

But there has been continued environmental, Indigenous and municipal opposition to the pipeline on the west coast, with the situation further complicated when B.C.’s new NDP government took office in July, pledging to use whatever tools were in its toolbox to stop the pipeline.

As the new year turns, however, Premier Rachel Notley sees progress in the fight for the $7.4-billion Trans Mountain project, which is viewed as crucial in opening the Asian market to and gaining better prices for Alberta’s oilsands crude.

“I’m cautiously optimistic we will see shovels in the ground in 2018, yes,” she said in a year-end interview with Postmedia at McDougall Centre.

Notley’s approach as the pipeline battle heated up in 2017 was two-fold.

First, the province engaged legally where it could, seeking and gaining intervener status in the Federal Court case that sees a group of First Nations, municipalities and environmental groups seeking to overturn federal approval of Trans Mountain, as well as in the National Energy Board hearings where Kinder Morgan took on Burnaby over delayed permits.

In the latter case, the NEB ruled that Kinder Morgan could proceed with construction of terminals in Burnaby without complying with two sections of municipal bylaws.

Notley speaks at the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade’s annual Energy Forum in Vancouver on Nov. 30, 2017.Darryl Dyck /
The Canadian Press

The second part of Notley’s strategy involved sharpening her own pro-pipeline pitch in a series of speeches in Toronto, Ottawa and Vancouver. Among the key messages were that pipelines are economically beneficial to all of Canada and that Alberta’s commitment to sweeping action on climate change would falter if pipelines are blocked by the rest of the country.

Notley said the government will keep up those efforts in 2018, with the decision in Federal Court potentially a major turning point for the pipeline.

“There’s the whole effort to bring public opinion along with us on this and that will continue,” she said.

“Obviously, as the legal challenges unfold, the positioning of everybody will change and the scope of opportunity for the opposition will hopefully change and narrow.”

The premier said that in the new year, Alberta will also continue to prod the federal Liberal government to promote and defend the pipelines it has approved.

But the politics of pipelines are increasingly complicated for the Notley government, especially with the demise of the Energy East pipeline.

The proposed pipeline to New Brunswick was shelved this year by TransCanada Corp., with the NEB’s decision to consider downstream greenhouse gas emissions a factor in its demise.

Jason Kenney, the leader of the United Conservative Party, said it’s clear that the NDP’s strategy of linking pipelines to climate initiatives such as the provincial carbon tax to gain “social licence” had failed.

And he accuses the NDP of being a “lap dog” for the Trudeau government on the pipeline front.

Kenney wants the NDP to take a harder line with Ottawa, including potential legal action and halting any future carbon tax increases unless the Liberals take all necessary action to move Trans Mountain forward. The former MP has also threatened economic retaliation against B.C. if it tries to block Kinder Morgan, including cutting off Alberta oil and gas exports to the province.

“I’m very concerned,” said Kenney about Trans Mountain’s fate.

“Kinder Morgan has already indicated that they are delaying their initial timelines by nearly a year. It looks like they’re being forced through the kind of regulatory thicket I’ve long been concerned about.”

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One month into building a new political party and MLA Derek Fildebrandt is discovering it’s not as easy at it looks. Not that building a new party has ever looked easy. Except perhaps to Fildebrandt who announced last month he was interim leader of the Freedom Conservative Party. I’m not sure if he expected thankful voters to stampede to his door, hoist him up in their thankful arms and parade him around the town square. Or maybe he at least expected some press coverage that didn’t in some way mock his checkered political past. He got neither.